Coral bleaching is a condition often associated with the summer doldrums, but extreme cold weather, like what the Florida Keys experienced earlier this month, also can cause coral to bleach and die.

This month's cold snap has the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and other coral conservation groups conducting a survey to determine the extent of the damage. During the next two weeks, teams of scientific divers from federal and state agencies and nongovernmental and academic organizations will be surveying coral colonies from the Dry Tortugas through Martin County to assess coral reef health.

Temperatures in some Keys nearshore waters dropped to 52 degrees for several days -- well below average for this time of year -- with fatal results for some corals.

Mote Marine Laboratory BleachWatch Coordinator Cory Walter was surprised at the extent of the affected corals when she dove various patch reefs in the Keys last week. Most of the bleaching and death occurred in the mid-Hawk Channel and nearshore reefs, Walter said. The offshore reefs fared better. The cold seems to have affected all species equally, Walter said.

The coordinated and comprehensive assessment from the scientific community was sparked by initial reports from divers, Walter and The Nature Conservancy marine biologist Meaghen Johnson.

"If there is any good news, it's that reef managers and scientists are able to quickly respond to this event and are in a good position to learn more about how reefs will rebound following such a rare occurrence," said Chris Bergh, director of The Nature Conservancy's Coastal and Marine Resilience Program.

Keys divers are encouraged to report the location of observed coral bleaching to Mote Marine Laboratory's BleachWatch program at http://www.mote.org/bleachwatch. This early-warning network helps alert managers to major disturbances.

Divers also should be aware that bleached corals are extremely vulnerable to additional stress. Divers are encouraged to seek non-stressed areas to enjoy at this time and, as always, not to touch corals, conservationists said.

Coral bleaching occurs when corals are stressed and lose their symbiotic algae called zooxanthella. Prolonged stress can result in coral death. Coral bleaching is most frequently associated with elevated water temperatures, but stress also occurs when water temperatures dip below the preferred 60-degree threshold, scientists say.

A cold-water bleaching and die-off hasn't occurred in Florida since the late 1970s.

Former sanctuary superintendent and 39-year Keys resident Billy Causey vividly recalled the damage from the winters of 1977 and 1978, when he saw "light flurries" of snow in Big Pine Key. Nearly 10 acres of healthy and "robust" staghorn coral on the Western Sambos Reef and another 10 acres of "unblemished" staghorn off Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas died, he said.

He fears the long-term effects of the recent cold snap, which lasted much longer than the previous event, when Keys corals were much healthier than today. Years of pollution, overfishing and global warming have taken their toll, he said.

"Since (1977), our corals have been struggling," Causey said. "Our corals were just starting to see recovery."

A healthy coral results in big money for the Keys and South Florida. Reef-related expenditures generate more than $4.4 billion annually in southeast Florida and reef recreation supports more than 70,000 jobs, according to a 2001 economic survey.

"Global" cooling? More like Keys cooling, coral cooling, or Caribbean cooling. Not even we educated anthropogenic GW alarmism deniers think every part of the globe is cooling. I saw Florida (at least the northern part) this cold in the early 1960s, too, as it was again in the early 80s. This is weather, not climate.

But I'd hate to be a coral anyway, since few of them have furnaces in their homes.

CAIRO (AP) - Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming, according to a new audiotape released Friday.

In the tape, broadcast in part on Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden warned of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring "the wheels of the American economy" to a halt.

He blamed Western industrialized nations for hunger, desertification and floods across the globe, and called for "drastic solutions" to global warming, and "not solutions that partially reduce the effect of climate change."

Bin Laden has mentioned climate change and global warning in past messages, but the latest tape was his first dedicated to the topic. The speech, which included almost no religious rhetoric, could be an attempt by the terror leader to give his message an appeal beyond Islamic militants.

The al-Qaida leader also targeted the U.S. economy in the recording, calling for a boycott of American products and an end to the dollar's domination as a world currency.

"We should stop dealings with the dollar and get rid of it as soon as possible," he said. "I know that this has great consequences and grave ramifications, but it is the only means to liberate humanity from slavery and dependence on America."

He argued that such steps would also hamper Washington's war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The new message, whose authenticity could not immediately be confirmed, comes after a bin Laden tape released last week in which he endorsed a failed attempt to blow up an American airliner on Christmas Day.

To meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon.

To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, the cost of driving must simply increase, according to a forthcoming report by researchers at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The 14 percent target was set in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for fiscal 2010.

In their study, the researchers devised several combinations of steps that United States policymakers might take in trying to address the heat-trapping emissions by the nation’s transportation sector, which consume 70 percent of the oil used in the United States.

Most of their models assumed an economy-wide carbon dioxide tax starting at $30 a ton in 2010 and escalating to $60 a ton in 2030. In some cases researchers also factored in tax credits for electric and hybrid vehicles, taxes on fuel or both.

In the modeling, it turned out that issuing tax credits could backfire, while taxes on fuel proved beneficial.

“Tax credits don’t address how much people use their cars,” said Ross Morrow, one of the report’s authors. “In reverse, they can make people drive more.”

Dr. Morrow, formerly a fellow at the Belfer Center, is a professor of mechanical engineering and economics at Iowa State University

Researchers said that vehicle miles traveled will increase by more than 30 percent between 2010 and 2030 unless policymakers increase fuel taxes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fu(kin ouch!!!!!!
That should help the economy.
Hawaiian scale, make that about $8.00/gal

THE CASE for global-warming alarmism is melting faster than those mythical disappearing Himalayan glaciers, but Al Gore isn’t backing down.

In a long op-ed piece for The New York Times the other day, Gore cranked up the doomsday rhetoric. Human beings, he warned, “face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.” His 1,900-word essay made no mention of his financial interest in promoting such measures - Gore has invested heavily in carbon-offset markets, electric vehicles, and other ventures that would profit handsomely from legislation curbing the use of fossil fuels, and is reportedly poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire.” However, he did mention “global-warming pollution” no fewer than four times, declaring that “our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation” if we don’t move decisively to reduce it.

By “global-warming pollution,” Gore means carbon dioxide (CO2), which is a “pollutant” in roughly the way oxygen and water are pollutants: Human existence would be impossible without them. CO2 is essential to photosynthesis, the process that sustains plant life and generates the oxygen that human beings and animals inhale. Far from polluting the world, carbon dioxide enriches it. Higher levels of CO2 are associated with larger crop yields, increased forest growth, and longer growing seasons - in short, with a greener planet.

Of course carbon dioxide also contributes to the greenhouse effect that keeps the earth warm. But the vast majority of atmospheric CO2 occurs naturally, and it is far from clear that the carbon dioxide contributed by human industry has a significant impact on the world�s climate.

On the other hand, it is quite clear that the economic and agricultural activity responsible for that anthropogenic CO2 has been enormously beneficial to myriads of men, women, and children. In just the last two decades, life expectancy in developing nations has climbed appreciably and infant mortality has fallen. Hundreds of millions of Indian and Chinese citizens have been lifted out of poverty. Whatever else might be said about carbon dioxide, it has helped make possible a dramatic increase in the quality of many human lives.

But there is no awareness of such tradeoffs in Gore’s latest screed. He brushes aside as unimportant the recently exposed blunders in the 2007 assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. These include claims that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035, that global warming could slash African crop yields by 50 percent, and that 55 percent of the Netherlands - more than twice the correct amount - is below sea level.

Gore seems equally untroubled by Climategate, the scandal involving researchers at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, who apparently schemed to manipulate temperature data to prevent their critics from being published in peer-reviewed journals, and to destroy records and calculations to keep climate skeptics from double-checking them.

Both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s errors and the Climatic Research Unit scandal have triggered major investigations, and opinion polls show a falloff in the percentage of the public that believes either global warming is cause for serious concern or that scientists see eye to eye on the issue. Yet Gore insists, against all evidence, that “the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged.”

To climate alarmists like Gore, everything proves their point. For years they argued that global warming would mean a decline in snow cover and shorter ski seasons. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” one climate scientist lamented to reporters in 2000. The IPCC itself was clear that climate change was resulting in more rain and less snow.

Undaunted, Gore now claims that the blizzards that have walloped the Northeast in recent weeks are also proof of global warming. “Climate change causes more frequent and severe snowstorms,” he posted on his blog last month.

Gore is a True Believer; his climate hyperbole is less a matter of science than of faith. In almost messianic terms, he urges Congress to sharply restrain Americans’ access to energy. “What is at stake,” he writes, “is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.”

But while Gore prays for redemption, the pews in the Church of Climate Catastrophe are gradually emptying. The public’s skeptical common sense, it turns out, is pretty robust. Just like those Himalayan glaciers.

You always have to watch Mike’s math. The average American drives a little over 12,000 miles a year, and the average American car gets 17 mpg. At $ 7.00/gallon for petrol that’s $ 4,941 a year. Not 2K, ± 247% is close though. Peanuts, or $ 4,941, would buy quite a few fun new windsurfing toys. Or pay the health insurance premium of a healthy, no previous conditions, single person for a year. Peanuts, I don't think so.

I've previously posted information that shows that the cost of securing our middle East oil supply, as currently practiced, is about $1.70/gallon. We also know that fuel prices were up over $5/gallon when the "bubble" economy was booming, and we know that they will head up again as soon as the economy seems to have recovered a bit.

On the other hand, the estimates that I have read are more in the 20 cents to $1/gallon range, with funds used to a) reduce our dependence on foreign oil and escalating energy prices; b) reduce the Federal deficit or replace other funding sources.; c) capture some of the hidden costs of burning oil--air pollution and global warming. So riddle me this. Why are conservatives who talk about the market being so efficient so reluctant to use market forces to make our energy systems more efficient? A partial answer--the billions spent by energy companies last year to convince the readily brain-washed that global warming is a hoax and the energy supply from the middle east is safe and secure. Mike Fick put his brain on auto-pilot many years ago, but why should the rest of us?

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